Raspberry Jam eBook

“How perfectly absurd! Oh, I’ve
a notion to telephone and ask her to go for a drive.
What fun!”

Shane looked at the mischievous face in astonishment.
He was experienced in human nature, but this shallow,
frivolous attitude toward a tragedy was new to him.

“I thought you and Mrs, Embury were friends,”
he said, reprovingly.

“Oh, we are—­Or rather, we were.
I’m not sure I can know her —­after
this! But, you see, I can’t take it seriously.
I can’t really believe you mean that you think
Eunice—­guilty! Why, I’d a thousand
times rather suspect the old aunt person!”

“You would!” Shane spoke eagerly.
“Could that be possible?”

“It could be possible this way,” Fifi
was serious now. “You see, Miss Ames adores
Eunice. She found it hard to forgive Sanford
for his tyrannical ways—­and they were tyrannical.
And Miss Ames might have, by way of ridding Eunice
from a cruel husband—­might have—­oh,
I can’t say it—­it sounds too absurd!
But, after all, it’s no more absurd than to suspect
Eunice. Why don’t you look for somebody
else?”

“How could anybody get in?”

“I know,” impatiently; “but I’ve
read detective stories, and ’most always, the
murder is committed in what they call ’a hermetically
sealed room,’ and yet somebody did get in!”

“There’s no such thing as a hermetically
sealed room! Don’t you know what hermetically
sealed means?”

“Yes, of course I do, literally. But that
phrase is used—­in detective stories, to
mean an inaccessible room. Or a seemingly inaccessible
one. But always it comes out that it could be
entered.”

“That’s all very well in fiction, ma’am;
but it won’t work in this case. Why, I
looked over those door locks myself. Nobody
could get in.”

“Well, leaving aside the way they got in, let’s
see whom we can suspect. There’s two men
that I know of who are dead in love with Mrs, Embury—­and
I daresay there are a lot more, who can see a silver
lining in this cloud!”

“What—­what do you mean?”

Shane was fascinated by the lovely personality of
Mrs, Desternay, and he began to think that she might
be of some real help to him. Though a skilled
detective, he was of the plodding sort, and never
had brilliant or even original ideas. He had
had a notion it would have been better to send Driscoll
on this errand he was himself attempting, but a touch
of jealousy of the younger and more quick-witted man
made him determine to attend to Mrs, Desternay himself.

“Well, Mr. Stupid, if you were in the presence
of Mrs, Embury and Mr. Elliott and Mr. Hendricks,—­as
you said you were—­and didn’t size
up how matters stand with those two men, you are a
queer sort of detective!”

Her light laughter rippled pleasantly, and Shane forgave
her reproof by reason of her charm.